North Sister 2

So after climbing at smith one weekend, my brother and I decided to see how high up on south sister we could get. He had climbed middle sister the week before and was keen to get on top of another one. Both of us damn well knew that N. Sister is called "the black beast of the Cascades" for a reason (or even Ugly Sister), but we figured we would turn around if the going got sketchy. The standard route is normally done in the winter or spring when the rubble is well frozen over. One ascends the southeast ridge, weaving your way around gendarmes to the so called "terrible traverse." Then you gingerly scoot your way up a groove called the bowling alley (man it seems there's one on every high cascade peak) and up onto the mass of Prouty peak, the summit pinnacle. It turns out we wouldn't have to worry about all the technical stuff, as we turned around at around 8,000 feet when the wind cranked up to gusts of 60 mph +. The blasts nearly knocked you off your feet and we got mighty cold in our thin shells. Being on a ridge, you could never predict which way the next blast of cold air would come. The rain coming in sideways didn't help either. I'd rather have below freezing and snow than just above freezing and cold, cold rain like we did. So before we bailed we made a couple of videos and a few phone calls to confuse people. Anyways, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Even a quick defeat still makes for an excellent day.

Before the steep parts with a shrouded North Sister in the background

A completely unnecessary move on crumbly rock

Right before the real action began above the first gendarme

The wind was so strong it ripped off my wilderness permit!

We. Were. Freezing. It took us a couple of hours to warm back up again on the way down. Here I am starting to dry out once we got back down from the ridge.